


birdhouse in your soul

by skywalkwithme (orphan_account)



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Banter, Dialogue Heavy, M/M, Pining, Secret Crush, Sharing a Brain, Thought sharing, basically they're sharing thoughts, fun spooky times, is it a ghost or do they need medical help?, you can probably guess which sides they both fall on this one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-20 15:30:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18128234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/skywalkwithme
Summary: [You’re excited. I can feel it.] Shane says. Or, rather,  thinks.[Yeah, and you’re- hmm.] Ryan muses.[What am I feeling?][I would call this mixed. I have no idea. It’s- your feelings are too weird.][Sort of a feeling soup.][Yeah.]You have no idea, Shane thinks.or: the worst-case scenario when you have a crush on your best friend you're trying to keep a secret? a ghost cursing you both so you share all of your thoughts





	birdhouse in your soul

**Author's Note:**

> my worst nightmare is ryan and shane or anyone associated thereof reading this. if anyone who is/knows them is reading, know you are taking decades off my life.
> 
> title is from birdhouse in your soul by they might be giants, bc shane strikes me as a they might be giants kinda guy.
> 
> also this is truly so much dialogue. i am sorry. it is so fun to write
> 
> EDIT: sorry guys, not gonna be continuing this one! apologies if you got into it- i've got some other projects on the go and just don't have the space. as part of cleaning up my ao3 i'm gonna be orphaning this one, bc unfinished fic gives me the heebie jeebies, but i wanted to leave it up in case anyone was still interested in reading it.   
> thanks guys!

It's a Wednesday at 10am when he notices something is weird.

He’s hungry. He already had breakfast, and a coffee as tall as his head, but he’s starving. He wants something sweet. A cookie? Hmm.  
So he gets up and wanders into the break room to open the cupboard and contemplate if anyone would notice if he took some Oreos from the open sleeve. Those would be really good right now. 

The door opens behind him, and Ryan wanders in. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Sorry, just gonna-“ Ryan points at the cookies near Shane’s hand. Shane contemplates putting them up on a higher shelf to watch him hop for them, but it’s too early in the morning. “Here.”

“Thanks.” Ryan takes three and eats one in a single bite. He must catch Shane looking judgmental, because he smiles. “Shut up, I didn’t have breakfast.”

“You eat like a teenaged boy.” Shane says, ignoring that he was just thinking about eating the same thing.

“I will take that as a compliment.” Ryan says, deliberately obtuse. 

“Well, it’s not.”

“Okay.” Ryan points the sleeve up at Shane. “Cookie?”

“Nah.” He isn’t hungry anymore, for some reason. 

Ryan bonks him gently on the head with the package. His hand brushes Shane’s as he reaches to put them back, and Shane steps back. Careful, he thinks. 

“Are you looking through the cuts of the episode?”

“Yeah. Trying to figure out which of the nine thousand instances of you going-“ Here Shane approximates a version of Ryan’s wigged out, deer-in-the-headlights, ghosts-are-melting-my-tiny-mind look “-to edit out.”

Ryan laughs.

— — 

Their last expedition had been a few weeks ago. They’d driven down a shitty road, jolting over rocks the size of Shane’s head, and camped out in the woods in a tiny ghost town near an old mill, a couple metres from an abandoned cabin. Shane had wanted to bring two tents- so he could sleep out near a junked-out car and Ryan nearer the cabin, to cover all their very non-haunted bases- but Ryan had said, “You’re gonna leave me alone with the fucking sawmill ghosts?”

“What are they gonna do, pulp you? The mill is rusted out.”

“It’s not out of the realm of possibility. Also we only have the budget for one tent.”

So they’d spent the night there, Ryan’s back pressed up against his, kneeing him in the shins whenever he hear an owl. At one point, the winds pick up, and this gives Ryan the opportunity to hear voices and moans in every ambient noise.

“Dude- what the fuck, that sounds like something moving- in the woods- oh my God-“

“It’s not.”

“Holy fuck- no, that was footsteps-“

“I promise it wasn’t.”

Ryan scoots closer to him, and Shane can feel him pressing against his back. He tenses. This is why- this is why he wanted separate tents. They’re too close. He inches further towards the tent wall- his face is almost pressed up against the plastic.

“Dude- turn around. I wanna get a shot of your face. How are you not freaked.”

Reluctantly, he rolls over, squinting. “Unreal.” Ryan says to his phone camera, trying to squish both their faces into frame.

Ryan’s face is too close to his. It’s dark, but even still he can see the vague shape, the glint of his eyes. He smells like the eight layers of sunscreen and bug dope he put on in the parking lot, and a little like sweat. Shane is close enough to see the pulse beating in his neck. 

“I’m losing it, actually. There’s no one around, like- for miles. If something attacked our tent- oh shit, dude, there’s bears here-“

“We have our phones, Ryan. Just try to chill.”

“Jesus- feel my pulse. Feel how scared I am.” Ryan brings Shane’s hand to his neck.

Shane looks at Ryan, his eyes reflecting the white light of his phone, wide and freaked-out. He had wanted to go to a castle in Toronto that wouldn’t let them stay the night, where they could get separate hotel rooms and eat lunch at some nice taco place with the whole crew there and clatter around a building while camera people follow them and security watches. This- the tent is the size of his desk at home. He can feel Ryan’s breath on him, the hammer of his pulse under his hand.

When he first started on the show, he hadn’t expected this to be so much of a thing. The overnights. He had expected to sit at a desk with Ryan and be filmed discussing serial killers. He had thought it would be fine.

But people love it, apparently, when they stay overnight or go on outings, so Ryan falls asleep on his shoulder on planes, or steals his food at shitty small-town diners, or sits next to him in the car with his hair all messy, yawning, or lies there, next to him, curled up against his back. Ryan grabbed his wrist earlier, when a bat flew in front of them, and Shane felt a jolt shoot up his hand. He doesn’t think he noticed, but-  
Shane knows- one day, something is going to slip, he’s going to be half-asleep, or exhausted, and say something, or do something, and Ryan will know. He’ll find out and it’ll all go to hell. 

He pulls his hand away. “When you were a kid, I bet you were the annoying one at sleepovers who wouldn’t shut up.” Shane says. 

“Fuck off. Although yes.”

— 

Shane scrubs through the footage on his laptop, chin in his hand. You can’t tell, he affirms. He just looks sleepy and pissy, which is the same as he always looks.

He goes out later for lunch and gets another large coffee, which he realizes thirty minutes later is a mistake as he feels his heart rate increase to a chipmunky hammer. He probably should have eaten more food. He rubs his hands together- they’re sweaty. He’s got to stop with so much caffeine. 

Next to him, Ryan starts jiggling his leg. 

Five minutes later he’s still jiggling. Shane takes off his headphones and kicks him gently. “You need to go run a lap or something?”

“Maybe. I feel really, like, energized all of a sudden.”

“How much coffee have you had?”

“None.”

“Huh. You know, there’s an elementary school a couple blocks away, I could drive you over to the playground-“

“Ah, shut up.”

“Let you tear around-“

“You’d scare the children.”

“I would?”

“Yeah, they’d think you’re like, the bogeyman. Big-ass head-“

“I have work to do, okay, if you’re gonna sit there and insult me-“

“You started it.” But Ryan puts his earbuds back in and turns back to his laptop.

An hour later, Shane, weirdly, feels a smile twitch up his face. There’s the warm breath of a laugh in the back of his throat. 

He’s booking a flight for their next episode. He stares at the page for Air Canada flights to Toronto. He feels suddenly- merry. 

He slides his gaze over. On his left, Ryan has his hand over his mouth and is laughing silently at something on his phone. He catches Shane’s gaze and shows him his phone- it’s a clip of some standup comedian. 

Shane watches, laughs, and turns back to his work. 

He returns to the episode, running through the footage. “Lmk if we should cut this or not,” reads the email. He clicks play. 

— — 

Ryan’s eyes are wide in the greenish light. “Shane, holy fuck- Shane, what was that-“

“I believe that was what’s known as an owl.”

“No, no dude, that was a voice. That wasn’t-“

“That was one hundred percent an owl.”

“It sounded like- ah!”

“That- okay, you have stepped through the floor.”

“Yeah, that- Oh, fuck, wow, that’s rotted. Is that a beer can?”

“Best kinds of parties are the ones in rotting, wet cabins, baby.”

“I mean, I got a beer, I got a mattress that’s just full of mold, I got eighty percent of a roof. This is great.”

“Canada’s Vegas.”

Ryan laughs, then jumps, clutching at Shane. “Oh my God- the door moved.” He points his camera at it.

“D- do you really need to tell me that was the wind.”

“It’s moving, oh, no, ohh, it’s moving-“

“Yes, because of the wind.”

“How are you not- how are you- We are in a fucking rotting cabin in the middle of the woods, there’s a face painted on the side of this cabin, the door is- Oh, shit it’s still moving, there’s voices-“

“Ehh.”

“How is any of this ‘ehh’? I fucking- I do not fucking get it.

“Well. Potato, potato.”

“Tomato, tomato, haunted creepy-ass cabin, normal day out.”

“Yes.”

Ryan shakes his head in exasperation.

— — 

Real-life Shane clicks out of the video. He sends an email to the Unsolved team: Leave the door probably, could cut the owl.

The day ends. He goes home. He eats a bunch of pasta, flicks through a book, putters around, does dishes, feeds his cat. He’s putting the cat food bag back into the cupboard when it slips out of his hands.

He straightens up. He’s dizzy- he grabs the counter. He feels like his hands are too far away from his brain. 

Shane windmills over to the couch and slumps down. “Whoa.”

He claps his hands to his face. His cheeks are warm. He feels flushed. 

His cat jumps up next to him, and he tries to pet her but ends up mostly just planting his hand on her head. She yelps and hops away. “Oh, sorry buddy.” He says, and laughs. 

He stands up and the floor weaves around him. Pushing clumsily through the trash, he squints at the wrapper on the pasta sauce. Was something in that? He feels so weird. He googles his symptoms- typing into his phone is like, a hundred times harder than usual- but all of them just tell him he’s drunk, which makes no sense. Eventually, he just falls asleep on the couch. 

At work the next day, Ryan seems quieter than usual. “Hey.” says Shane, apropos of nothing. “Sup?”

“Ah, I’m fucking so tired.”

“Yeah?”

“I went out for drinks with a couple people and we went, like, way too hard.”

“Tsk tsk. On a Wednesday.”

“Yeah, right.”

Shane pauses. “How- drunk did you get?”

“Uh, I dunno. Pretty drunk? Not like, blackout though. I’m not in college.”

“Huh, okay.”

“Why?”

“Oh. Just curious.”

“You seem weirdly thoughtful.”

“Nah.” Says Shane.

—- — 

They send him the bit where they drag a psychic in to see if she can see any ghosts in the cabins. She’s a short woman with long blonde hair and floppy bangs, which she frequently peers up from when announcing some sort of ghostly presence. Probably for dramatic effect. Shane, privately, think she’s full of baloney.

“So,” she says in a hoarse voice, “The thing with these ghosts in here is they are known to grant wishes.”

“Wishes.” says video-Shane.

“Yes. So, what we can do here is each think of something you want.” she says firmly.

“To understand- to understand why you’re like this.” Ryan says to him.

“You would rather understand me than like, have a billion dollars, or live forever-“

“Truly, my life would be complete if I could-“

“Gain access to the Shane-o-drome. The Shane-o-sphere.”

“Is that what you call your brain? Yes.”

“Alright. Hey, ghosts-“

“Edna Murray lived here.” says the psychic.

“Hey Edna. My buddy Ryan would like the full Shane experience, can you hook us up, please.”

“Hook us up-“ giggles Ryan.

“Okay, not- you know what I mean, Edna.”

“Edna, Mrs Murray, we hear you grant wishes, uh, if you could help me understand Shane, that would be, uh, that would be great.”

They stand there. The psychic coughs into her elbow.

There’s a creak from somewhere in the far end of the house. Ryan looks back at him, eyes huge, and Shane laughs.

— —

Can you cut in more shots of his scared face, it’s funny, he emails back.

Later Ryan looks over. “What are you listening to?”

“Um. They Might Be Giants.”

“Oh. It’s kinda loud, would you mind-“

“Oh, yeah sure.”

Ten minutes later- “Dude, you’re gonna kill your hearing.”

“It’s not that loud.” 

“I can hear it from here!”

“All right, all right.”

Ten more minutes, and- “Dude, I can hear Birdhouse in your Soul from here.”

“It’s so quiet, that’s not possible. Ryan-“

“Well, I can.”

“How good is your hearing?”

“Better than yours, since you’re blasting it away, right now, apparently.”

Shane just turns it off.

A bunch of people get herded outside later to test different sunscreens. It’s a nice day out, so Ryan goes, and Shane wanders out after him. Better to lie in the sun for three hours than sit inside and work. Why not.

Ryan steps out of the building in front of him, and stretches his arms in the sun. “Ah, this is nice.”

“Y-“ Shane trips on the doorframe and completely eats it. He plants his two hands on the ground, the drink in his hand splattering on the pavement. 

“Ow, Jesus-“ he looks up. Ryan is on the ground too, in the same position, looking at him.

“Did you two literally fall at the exact same time?” Quinta says behind him. “Oh, your iced coffee.”

“Yeah, I stubbed my fucking toe.” Ryan says. “What did I even trip on?”

Shane picks up his now-empty coffee cup sadly. 

“Y’all are so in sync you literally fall down at the same time. I love it.” says Quinta, stepping over the coffee puddle. 

“Yeah, I guess.” says Shane. Ryan is looking at him, frowning.

They lie in the sun, toasting experimentally. Ryan is very quiet next to him. 

 

——

At 7:54 AM, Ryan texts him.

Ryan: Hey I’m picking u up this morning

Shane: um ok

Ryan: I’m outside rn

Shane opens his door, squinting in the sun. “I’m still in my pyjamas.”

“Doesn’t matter, we’re not going to work.”

“Wh-“

“Just get out here.” Ryan clears water bottles and cables and sweaters off the passenger seat for him, shaking his head. “Dude, dude. Something weird is happening. Something is weird.”

“Something is weird, you have like eight more water bottles than any one person needs. Also, it’s not even eight o’clock.”

Ryan ignores him. He opens the door and walks over to his side. “I know you’ve noticed it too, dude. I know you have. This is so freaky. I can’t believe I didn’t realize before.”

“Okay- listen, I can’t do your theories without breakfast.”

Ryan sits down in the passenger seat. “Yeah, you know what, sure. Breakfast.”

Ryan pulls into a Mcdonalds drive thru three blocks down. “I’m gonna order for you, because I know what you want.”

“I- okay.” Shane hangs back.

Ryan pays and pulls over in the parking lot. He hands him a Bacon Mcmuffin and a large black coffee. “Here. Tell me this isn’t exactly what you wanted.”

He peers at it. “I mean, I wouldn’t say no to any kind of Mcdonalds-“

“Is it what you wanted?”

“I mean, it’s what I usually get, but-“

“There you go. I got the same thing.”

“Oh.”

“I wanted the same order, Shane. I usually fucking hate black coffee.”

He’s got some idea, Shane knows it. Something is churning away in his brain- he can see it in his eyes. “Mackie D twins.”

“No, I wanted the exact same order.”

“Okay-“

“On- last night, what did you have for dinner?”

“Um-“

“Trick question, I know, it was pasta with Alfredo sauce.”

He pauses.

“Am I right?”

“Yeah-“

Ryan’s eyebrows shoot up. “I could taste it. I knew it.”

“You could taste- what, Ryan-“

“I kept hearing your music. Even when it was quiet. You listened to Birdhouse in your Soul like, eighteen times.”

“Yeah, because you’re sensitive-“

“You said it was on quiet. I could hear it like it was playing in my ear. I got jittery after you drank that massive coffee, we tripped at the same time-“

“Okay, you’re working up to some kind of thing here-“

“I think we’re sharing thoughts.”

Shane puts down his McMuffin. Ryan’s eyes are wide, boring directly into him. “Ryan-“

“Tell me you haven’t experienced anything weird in the past two days.”  
“Okay, so, you can hear my music and we like the same food. That’s just- being in close proximity. That doesn’t mean-“ He remembers stumbling around last night and falling asleep on the couch. “There’s a lot of things-“

“Wh- okay. Hold on. I’ll prove it.” Ryan gets up.

“Oh, you will, okay.”

Ryan fusses in the paper bag they gave him, and comes up with a plastic knife. He snaps it in half to make a shard of plastic. He looks up directly at Shane, holding it in his fist, pointed down like a shiv. 

“Ryan-“ Shane says. “What the hell-“

Ryan stabs the plastic into his forearm, palm-up. A jolt of pain goes through Shane’s wrist, and he slaps his hand to it involuntarily. “Ah-“ He takes his hand away, expecting wetness, blood, but there’s nothing.

Ryan- there’s a thin rivulet of blood running into his hand. Shane grabs a handful of napkins, reaches across to press them to the shallow cut on his wrist. “Jesus- why did you-“

“Ah, fuck.” Ryan lets Shane dab at it. 

“Literally- what the hell?” Shane says, shaken, unaccountably.

“You- your arm hurt. At the same time as me. I saw you reach for it.”

“I-“ Shane presses his hand to his arm. It still hurts. His brain keeps telling him he’s bleeding. He looks at his hand.

“It hurts, right? It does. Holy shit.”

Shane pinches the bridge of his nose. “I- ah. I dunno.”

“Why would you feel it at the same time as me?”

“I don’t know- like, sympathy-“

Ryan presses his fingernail into his cut. Shane jumps.

“Ow- Jesus-“ His arm- just under the pit of his elbow- it stings.

“Can you- can you stop doing that?” he says. 

Ryan pulls Shane’s shirtsleeve up. There’s nothing there- not a red mark, nothing.

Ryan looks at him, eyes huge and dark. “Dude.”

 

——

They don’t go to work. They drive out to the beach and eat their identical Mcdonald’s on a log, and Ryan pulls out a notebook and chatters while Shane chews his sandwich.

“The- the question is- are we sharing feelings, or thoughts, or emotions, or all of them-“ Ryan says. “And like, how? And why? Is it supernatural, is it-“

“I felt- when you were laughing at a thing.” Shane says slowly. 

“At what? Really? How?” Ryan starts writing. 

“I- okay, I still don’t know exactly what this is. I’m not admitting anything-“

“You’re admitting you felt me laugh.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think it’s, like, a ghost thing, or whatever.“

“This is weird. You have to admit this is weird.”

“Yes. It is weird. I will admit that.”

“Okay, you felt me laugh-“

“You misspelled laugh, it’s got a ‘u’-“

“Literally who gives a fuck. Was there anything else?”

“Yeah, uh, when you were drunk. I also felt, like, drunk.”

“Oh shit, really? Like how?”

“I dunno, like, dizzy, and warm. Like how drunk feels.”

Ryan writes this down. “Okay. So we have- feelings like hunger, drunkenness, pain. Physical sensations. We can conclusively say we’re sharing those.”

“Well, I don’t know if conclusive is the right-“

Ryan looks up at him. “Turn your dickhead skeptic brain off for two goddamn seconds. This is fucked and I’m trying to figure out how to unfuck it. Stop it.“

Shane raises his eyebrows. “Alright. Sorry.”

Ryan shakes his head, breathes out through his nose. “Sorry. Sorry. Just like, this is the first time something weird has like, actually happened directly to me. And it’s weird.”

“That’s okay.”

“Alright. Do you think we share thoughts, too? Like not just physical feelings, but- do food cravings count as thought?”

“We could test it.” Shane tries to ignore the dread pooling in his stomach. “I’ll think of a number and you tell me what it is.”

“Okay.” Ryan closes his eyes. Shane summons a number

“Um- I don’t-“ he says. Then he sputters a laugh. “69? Really?”

Shane’s brain buzzes in his ears. Oh fuck, oh fuck oh fuck. “Yeah.” He pushes a laugh. “You got it.”

“Okay, I’ll do one.”

Shane tries to ignore the sudden tightness in his chest. “Okay, it’s-“ he sees an image of the number, for a second, in his mind’s eye. It’s so loud and bright, it actually startles him. “420?”

“Yeah.” Ryan laughs.

“So we can share thoughts. I guess.” He grins back, every limb heavy.

Ryan writes this down. 

Shane pretends he has to go to the bathroom, and flounders through the sand out to one of the little gross beach huts with a sandy cement floor. He stares at himself in the mirror.

This is very bad. He has to figure this thing out and then get rid of it, cure it- he has to do it as soon as possible.

He can’t even- he has to stop thinking about him. He can’t even let it float past in his mind. He has to figure out how to shut it off. Maybe he can meditate, or something? Because if- if he finds out.

No, he corrects himself, nothing to find out about. Nothing. From this day on, there is nothing. There has to be nothing. 

He did yoga once back in university. What did they teach about meditating? Clear your mind-

[HEY YOU’RE TAKING A LONG TIME IN THE BATHROOM]

“Ow! Fuck!”

The guy washing his hands next to him looks over. Shane pushes out the door. Down the beach, Ryan is waving.

[HEY DID IT WORK DID IT WORK]

The noise is deafening. Shane claps his hands to his ears and bends over. 

A second later, Ryan is there, his hand warm on Shane’s back. “Hey, oh my God, sorry, are you good-“

His hand on his back. Nope, nope, can’t think about it, nope. 

Shane straightens up. “Don’t shout like that.”

Ryan laughs nervously. “Oh, was I-“ [Here, how’s this?]

It sounds like Ryan is speaking to him, but his lips haven’t moved. He tries.

[Better.] Shane pushes the words through his mind, trying to make them clear. 

Ryan grins. [Loud, too. But, oh my god.]

[How’s this?]

[Yeah, yeah! We have telepathy now.]

[Excellent, I can listen to you chatter even more than usual.]

[This is so insanely cool.]

[A second ago you were freaked out.]

[I still am. But like, telepathy!]

Shane can feel Ryan’s excitement- like a pulse in the back of his mind, a kind of writhing energy. It’s hard, though- every time he tries to grasp on it, look at the specifics, it slips away.

[You’re excited. I can feel it.] Shane says. Or, rather, thinks.

[Yeah, and you’re- hmm.]

[What am I feeling?]

[I would call this mixed. I have no idea. It’s- your feelings are too weird.]

[Sort of a feeling soup.] 

[Yeah.]

You have no idea, Shane thinks.

[What?]

Oh fuck, right, he can hear.

[You just said fuck, but like, soft.]

[I am an adult. I can say fuck.]

[No, but it’s interesting that we have volume control. Okay, I should write this down.]

[Should I like, telepathically transmit the spelling of ‘volume’ to you?]

[Fuck off.]

[Just helping you out.]

[Sure.]

So. They sit on the log, and they test. They can feel each other’s feelings- Ryan watches videos on his phone and Shane feels, like before, laughter bubble up in his throat. Shane runs up and down the beach until he’s gasping, and looks over to a seated Ryan, his chest heaving.

If Shane pokes himself in the shin, Ryan feels it in the same shin. If Ryan scratches himself on the arm- well, they’ve established that. And telepathy, is like, a thing too, now. So.

Ryan writes all of this down. 

“Can we share thoughts?” He says, out loud.

[Yes, Ryan, I think we can.]

“No, not just like, speaking, but like, images, or impressions.”

“We did numbers before.”

“Yeah, but- hmm.”

Something assembles in his mind. It’s- 

“Wh- is that Paddington?”

“Yeah.” Ryan grins. “Holy shit, it worked.”

“Why-“ Shane’s shoulders shake with laughter. “Why- why Paddington? Paddington?”

“I don’t know! I wanted to pick something specific, not, like a circle or something- oh my God.”

Shane is still laughing. He can’t stop.

“Are you okay?” Ryan laughs.

He’s so fucked. He’s so fucked. Holy shit. He can’t stop laughing.

“I’m getting, like- man, your emotions are weird. Swearing.”

Shane wipes his eyes. “Oh my God.”

[I’m trying to get a read on you and it’s like- you have like eighteen things happening.]

Shane looks for Ryan. It’s in the same place- near the back of his head, close to his spine. A straight line of confusion.

[You’re confused.]

[Yeah. I don’t think you had to read my mind for that one, though.]

[How do you just have one emotion at a time?]

[That’s- lilke, how emotions work.]

[It is not.]

[I don’t get you.] Ryan thinks.

[Well, savour that feeling, bud, because we’re about to become very, very close.]

[Great.]

——

Ryan starts a Google doc. 

[You can add stuff on there, like, observances, or reasons you might think this is happening.]

Shane is at home, washing dishes. Ryan is not there- Ryan is at his home, with some kind of sports on, as far as he can tell. So the brain link thing isn’t affected by distance.

He gets the notification for the share. It’s called Telepathy Fuckery Theories.

[What do you think it was?] he murmurs to Ryan. 

[Well.]

[Oh, you have theories, I assume.]

[I do. I’m not going to tell you though, I’m going to try to think them out first.]

[So, you’ll tell me.]

[Oh, fuck, right. I keep- I keep forgetting.]

[Hey, a brain link with your bud, all in a days work. Not something that would stick in your mind.]

[Okay, well. This is new. Hard to get used to.]

[Yeah. Hey, shut up for a second, I’m watching hockey.]

[Aren’t you more of a basketball man?]

[Hey, don’t put me in a box. I can watch hockey. Now shut up, telepathy takes up my focus and the Caps are playing.]

So Shane stops telepathically speaking into Ryan’s mind so Ryan can watch hockey. How did my life get so weird so fast, he thinks. 

[Hey, I can still hear you, dickhead.]

He tries to keep his thoughts quiet, and collapses on the couch. He tries to meditate and mostly just pets his cat. Close enough. 

When he feels Ryan register a vague sense of glee, then boredom, then an interest in ketchup chips, he figures the game’s done.

[Ryan, I am endlessly fascinated by the workings of your brain.] he muses.

[Because I’m an undiscovered genius, right? Oh, there’s the chips.]

[You literally- you have one emotion at a time. It is so bizarre.]

[Like I told you, I’m not the bizarre one here.]

[I- oh man. I can taste those chips.] Shane’s mouth is flooded by salty ketchupy chip flavour. [Boy, that’s weird.]

[Don’t go- I dunno, don’t go eating anything weird. Don’t put any gross shit in your mouth. Before we fix this.]

[I’m gonna go out and suck some guy’s dick just to piss you off.]

[What- the fuck-] Ryan’s thoughts flare up in shocked amusement. Shane’s lips twitch up with Ryan’s laugh.

[I will pay you so much money to not do that.]

[How much? Okay, no I won’t.]

[All right.] Ryan’s laughter hums in his throat.

[Anyway.] he thinks [I have some theories on this mess.]

[Oh, wow, you have theories. I can- okay, well, if you’re not going to do this in good faith-]

[I literally have not even-]

[I can read your fuckin’ mind and you are registering a lot of like, ironic detachment.]

[Well. Psychosis is pretty likely-]

[It’s not psychosis.]

[That is exactly what a psychotic would say.]

[Tell me your other theory- oh your other one, this is good.]

[Do I really need to tell you, if you can literally see it-]

[No, no, tell me, I want to hear Shane Madej actually, legitimately theorize about the supernatural.]

[Well, you have no proof because this is just in our brains. So, okay. Actually, here, I’m just emailing you the footage.]

Shane listens to Ryan’s brain whir as he watches it. It’s the clip of the psychic invoking Enda Murray and Ryan demanding access to the Shane-o-drome. Ryan’s brain is pattering away- [fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck,] realization blasting like an anxiety sunrise.

The clip finishes. [OH, FUCK.] Ryan thinks. His brain is flaring alarm, and Shane is a little annoyed to find it’s seeping into his mind too. Is that a part of the whole brain link thing now?

[Stop fussing about my brain touching yours and start thinking about this. We fucking- we literally signed our asses up for this.]

[Well. Maybe.]

[Wait- you sent me- you sent me this fucking clip, you- is this an admission of the supernatural?]

[No, no-]

Ryan’s brain is shimmering with excitement. [You are— there is no way out of this, you admitted, you bastard-]

[Well, it’s possible that we just- we put that experience and ran with it, and we’re having some kind of symptoms of a mental thing that’s connected-]

[No, no, you admitted it, you did, no takebacks.] Ryan fuzzes with static, energetic. [We-this is proof. You go into these places and you ask entities to do shit to you and they did. Edna did exactly the fucking thing we asked. Oh my God.]

Shane has to get up and pace around to let off some of the nervous energy Ryan is like, transferring to him or something. 

[We have to go back there. We have to go back, and find that psychic, and leave, an, an offering, or something, and ask her to release us-]

[What we should do is see a psychiatrist.]

[We have a clear cause-effect thing going on here!]

[Oh, don’t bring actual science into this.]

The fuzz of victory is sharpening into a pointy annoyance. [I- we are experiencing something we can explicitly connect to a supernatural phenomena- a connection you made, I might add, not me- so I think the thing to do is to go back and try to reverse this. This is our best lead. It is.]

[I-]

[HA! I can feel you giving up. I can feel your skepticism weakening.]

[Okay. But. Don’t get your hopes up, is all I’m saying.]

Ryan is back to his smug static buzz. [God, that’s annoying.] Shane says.

[All right. Well. This has been a whole fucking day. I am going to bed. I am- I am so tired.]

Shane doesn’t know if it’s the connection or if it’s actually him, but he’s exhausted too. A lot of feelings being felt. Double feelings, actually. That’s bound to do a number on a guy.

Ryan passes out first, not before making Shane promise to fall asleep first next time so he can see what it feels like. And it’s odd, actually- he manages to keep himself awake by pinching himself, and almost doesn’t manage it, but soon he can feel Ryan slipping away, out of his mind like sand through his fingers. Ryan’s thoughts get more and more disjointed and blurry- [ghosts fuck curse house … fuck Shane what the fuck am I gonna do… woods… gotta do laundry tomorrow …figure out ghost curse… ugh..] the space between them widening until it’s dead air.

Shane lets out a breath. “Holy Jesus.” he says out loud. He scrubs his face with his hands. The absence of the drone of Ryan’s presence in the back of his mind- it’s a massive, massive relief.

“God. God.” He says. The only thing he has to do is get out of this without Ryan realizing he has a crush on him. If he can keep his awful horny brain in check for- however long this takes. He just has to keep pushing forward, and not dwell on- Ryan’s arms, or his grin, or the time he grabbed his wrist in the haunted house in Louisiana, or his breath on the back of his neck- fuck. 

Can’t think about that shit. Can’t do that. Absolutely not. Sit on your feelings, Shane, he tells himself. Live up to your Midwestern heritage. Repress the fuck out of that shit. Bury it in the deepest recesses of your brain.

So he goes to bed, and doesn’t think about Ryan, doesn’t imagine Ryan curled up next to him, looking to him for safety. He tries to practice thinking of nothing.

This is bad, is his last thought before he nods off.

**Author's Note:**

> gonna add more stuff, soon. this is gonna get spicy. stay tuned
> 
> also the ghost town they are in is based on a real ghost town i have actually explored! it's called parkhurst, it's an old mill town out near whistler, BC, Canada, that was abandoned in 1955. there is one old cabin still standing and it has a huge face painted on the side, its extremely sick.  
> link: http://whistlerhiatus.com/whistlerhikes/parkhurst-ghost-town.html  
> as far as I know it's not haunted, and I made edna murray up- I didn't want to disrespect the actual real people i've read about who lived there. i can verify, however, it's mad creepy
> 
> EDIT: hope yall enjoyed, again not gonna add more chapters, unfortunately. thanks!


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